Content management systems manage objects (such as documents, folders, or other types of objects). Content management systems have a catalog database that catalogs the objects that are stored in one or more content stores.
Process management systems manage workflow processes and may use a content management system to store and retrieve objects, as well as, to maintain workflow queues.
A case management system uses both a process management system and a content management system in order to facilitate the processing of cases (e.g., automobile insurance claims) by human case workers. A case may be described as a matter requiring investigation, decision, and resolution. In a case management system, a process management system implements the behavioral aspects of processing cases, and a content management system implements the informational aspects of processing cases.
For example, assume there is an existing case management system M that uses C1 as its content management system and P as its process management system. It may be desirable to integrate a different heterogeneous content management system C2 with M, such that M will use C2 instead of C1 for the case documents and folders. M will continue to use P as the process management system and will continue to use C1, but only for the catalog database objects related to the behavioral aspects of the case.
Some systems may integrate C2 with M with a bi-directional catalog synchronization of the informational parts of the catalogs of C1 and C2. In bi-directional catalog synchronization, the catalogs of two heterogeneous content management systems are automatically kept in sync by enhancements made to both of them. Keeping the two catalogs in sync includes mapping the document class and property definitions of the two catalogs to each other; addressing the continued system operation without losing synchronization information if one catalog crashes but not the other; continued system operation without losing synchronization information if the network is temporarily partitioned; “priming the pump” (i.e., which means not only keeping new objects added to either catalog in sync with the twin object in the other catalog going forward, but also creating mirror twin copies of catalog entries in one catalog from potentially millions of pre-existing catalog entries in the other catalog in a controllable and restartable way); keeping the catalogs in sync when nearly simultaneous updates are made to both members of a pair of twin catalog entries, so that the changes cross “in flight” over the network; performing the creates, deletes, and updates made to each object in both catalogs in ascending time order, etc.
Some systems use integration technology that uses content federation services where the real objects are replicated from the content management server to the case management server.